D&D demographics

[Flavel]

Between the years 500 AD - 1000 AD (early medieval ages) Europe had a population of around 30 million.

Assuming this was a fantasy D&D setting, and you were the Dungeon Master, how many Wizards would such a place have? of those Wizards, how many are 20th level?

I ask as I was number crunching the classes based on the premise that with 6% of the population having a "PC character class" and half the population being 1st level with decreasing percentages for higher levels (roughly halving at each level), I found very bizarre results in the demographics. Such as most prestige classes wouldn't have enough members to justify their existence.

If 30 million people had 1,800 wizards (900 of whom were 1st level, 450 2nd level, etc.) and you account for characters going into prestige classes you are left with 1 wizard at 17th level and perhaps the European continent seeing a 20th level wizard only once in every 100 to 200 years.

Part of the problem is that there are so many base classes and prestige classes that to fill them with any meaningful numbers to support an organizational structure would be flatly impossible.

The late medieval period is somewhat more workable with 150 million inhabitants (it still doesn't work) but then where do you put all the dragons?

The best I could work out was setting up continents where differing tech levels and population densities were at play along with a large "terra incognita" where the higher level nasty monsters would dwell.

Even so, after about 14th level, a party of adventurers would have to have many of there adventures in the underdark or in alternate earths and other planes to justify supporting all the prestige classes available.

Obviously this is a fantasy game and real world mechanics take a back seat but just trying to come up with justifications for the simplest demographics gets crazy, very fast.

[Foxwarrior]

There are simply too many classes, prestige classes, and races in the game for all of them to fit into a single setting nicely; it's probably better to pick the ones you or some players like and throw out the rest.

A world population of 7 or 70 billion instead could work with D&D technology given the variety of magical means by which such a population could be fed.

A level 20 Wizard every 200 years is more than enough.

[Flickerdart]

I ran the numbers based on assuming that the CR system made sense, and it comes out to something like 1 guy reaching 20th for several hundred billion adventurers dying on the way. So you're going to need to divorce mechanics from realism if you want to get anywhere.

[avr]

I ask as I was number crunching the classes based on the premise that with 6% of the population having a "PC character class" and half the population being 1st level with decreasing percentages for higher levels (roughly halving at each level), I found very bizarre results in the demographics. Such as most prestige classes wouldn't have enough members to justify their existence.
Halving each level is an excellent assumption at low levels. It makes rather less sense at high levels; almost all 11th level wizards will have the skills/paranoia to go on to make 12th level. I'd suggest your rate of decrease needs to slow after ~6th level.

[Spuddles]

It depends if you keep the cosmology/many worlds. Plus, high level characters can travel farther, faster, and easier than modern people, which means that for anything over 9 or 10, you can assume homogeneity over the whole setting.

Let's also not forget populations of monstrous races- there are a lot of dwarves, goblins, kobolds, orcs, drow, elves, etc. out there.

I always have more difficulty populating the world with races than things with levels.

Also, medieval europe was relatively under populated compared to their contemporaries. Like the capital of the aztec empire was bigger than madeid at the time. Modern evidence of pre-columbian american civilizations estimates them at surprisingly large sizes. My guess is that without malaria, it's easy to inhabit the most productive ecosystems- wetlands.

Similarily, magic and/or racials and/or differing disease biologies may make population densities in historically uninhabital areas much easier.

D&D isn't based on a historical europe; it's based on like monty python europe or any other fictionalized, romanticized version of a period. For instance, when the mongols hit easter europe, they were called the tartars and estimated to number in the millions. They were believed to be a plague from hell. How does that match up to hordes of orcs pouring out of the misty moutains to assault erebor? Sounds pretty analogous.

Of course, the steppes of mongolia and central asia could never support millilns of nomadic horseman- the mongols were such excellent warrior and tacticians, borrowing military strategy from the most contemporarily advanced civilizations, that the backwards europeans could only explain their losses as due to number. In reality, the europeans were out of their element.


Halving each level is an excellent assumption at low levels. It makes rather less sense at high levels; almost all 11th level wizards will have the skills/paranoia to go on to make 12th level. I'd suggest your rate of decrease needs to slow after ~6th level.

Ehh, level 10 and 11 is where things start getting even nastier. Example: level 11 wizard; beholder.

Save or dies start showing up, which means rolling ones kill you rather than natural 20s killing you.

[Flavel]

I broke out base classes unevenly. Figured more Barbarians and fighters then clerics and druids, and more clerics and druids then sorcerors and wizards. Rogues being midway between fighters and clerics in occurence.

Numbers came out to 1 "priest" per 100 inhabitants and one 5th level or higher priest for every 1,400 inhabitants.

5th level being critical as cure disease becomes available.

So I looked into historical epidemics and loss rates in the medieval ages due to childbed fever and other maladies.

Guess what? You essentially wipe out infectious diseases.

That changes the life expectency from 45 to something like 75.

Oh, and famines? I'd rather have druids then fertilizer.

There are no famines unless they are war related.

The only thing stopping a major population explosion would therefor be....

::drum roll::

Epic violence!

That's right monsters, and war. More or less continuously.

Makes me think a proper D&D world would look like Harry Harrison's "Death World."

Alternatively, some mechanism where birth rates are a lot lower could also work. The use of magic helping to make up for the lack of child labor that was historical in agrian societies.